Four dead inside Aurora home including gunman shot by police

AURORA, Colo. — Four people were killed this morning including a gunman who held police at bay for several hours in an Aurora townhome.

Aurora SWAT team members shot the gunman after he went to a second-floor window and fired a gun at police.

The gunman fatally shot two men and a woman, police say. One woman jumped from an upstairs back window, ran from the home and called police just before 3 a.m., said Cassidee Carlson, Aurora police spokeswoman.

The woman told police officers that she saw three “lifeless” bodies in the home. The woman was not injured by the jump or by gunshots.

The identities of the victims and the gunmen have not been released. The exact relationships between the victims are unclear, but they all may be related, Carlson said.

“It’s the worst case scenario,” she said.

Within minutes of the call, SWAT team officers surrounded the Seville Townhomes on the 16000 block of East Ithaca Place near Buckley Road and Hampden Avenue.

Police evacuated homes and sent emergency phone notifications.

“I was brutally awakened. I’ve never been so scared in my life,” said Michael Ignace, who lives in the corner unit of the same six-unit building where the shootings happened.

Hampden Avenue was shut down in both directions from Kalispell Street to Laredo Street. Hampden has since been reopened.

After the initial barrage of gunfire at 3 a.m., there were no gunshots until 8 a.m. when SWAT officers were approaching the townhome’s front windows in an armored vehicle.

The suspect opened fire on the vehicle, striking it numerous times. Police officers did not return fire at the time.

Police intermittently tried to negotiate with the suspect, who was hurling furniture and possessions against the doors to barricade them.

The suspect answered his phone several times but his discussions were unintelligible. He was extremely agitated. “He was not making sense,” Carlson said.

Shaunna Bustios, a neighbor, said she repeatedly heard police officers yelling through a bullhorn or intercom system to try to coax a man down.

“’Sonny, come down stairs. Sonny, we have your wife. Sonny, come out and we’ll get you the help you need,” Bustios said police called to the man.

Jennifer Williams, who lives adjacent to the home, said she watched what was going on from her garage and upstairs. She also heard police communicating with “Sonny.”

Police have not identified the suspect.

“’We know you’ve been up for four days. What’s done is done. Come out and we’ll get you some help,’” Williams said police were saying.

Police kept asking Sonny to allow them to help “Anthony, Chris and Stacey,” Williams said. The neighbor said she believes all five including the woman who escaped are related.

At 8:20 a.m., officers fired tire gas canisters through the front windows. The suspect did not come out at the time.

At about 9 a.m., the suspect appeared at a second-floor window and began firing at police officers. Police returned fire and the suspect fell.

Carlson said it is unconfirmed whether the suspect died at his own hand or by police fire.

Police entered the home after the shooting ceased and found the bodies of three adult victims on the first floor. It is not known whether the victims were in different rooms, Carlson said. They discovered the suspect’s body on the second floor.

Authorities are interviewing the woman who escaped the home to determine what triggered the shootings. It is unclear whether there was a struggle before the shooting.

Surrounding homes were damaged during the police operation. Plastic blinds and red and silver Christmas ornaments could be seen dangling from the front windows. One of the upstairs windows had blinds pulled down. Two baseball-sized holes could be seen in the other window in which the blinds were pulled halfway down.

The block is covered with police and detectives processing the shooting scene.

Ignace said Sonny would wave to him and they would occasionally talk about motorcycles. Sonny seemed like a nice guy, he said.

But Williams said she had suspicions that the suspect had been using methamphetamines.